Customer Reviews

How Can I Get Through to You?: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After 30 years as a licensed Marriage and Family counselor, I now
make it a point to recommend _How Can I Get Through to You?
(Reconnecting Men and Women)_ to every couple in my practice. As
a man, husband (32 years) and father (of a son and daughter), I
credit this book with changing my life.

Although I have seen these issues play out over three decades of
leading partners through couples therapy, the wisdom and insights
that I've gleaned from this book have offered me a new

perspective from which to help couples help themselves.

Terrence Real speaks of the breakdown of couple relationships as
a mirror of societal gender conflict. We (patriarchal culture)
socialize boys to be competitive and girls to be compliant. When
men and women become joined in marriage, it is a union of two
different species. However Real moves beyond merely describing
the differences between men and women by recommending a radical
course of bringing the genders back into balance - and wholeness.
He refers to this as 1) empowering the woman and 2) reconnecting
the man. This core concept really speaks to me for I find that
the majority of the couples in my practice are living examples of
the corrupted communication patterns that Real describes through
his model and illustrates so well in case studies.

The greatest insight that I received from this material is an
understanding of the profound impact of the early disconnection
of men. As Real explains, both girls and boys are severely
wounded during the socialization process - but the damage to
boys is more significant because their disconnect (from
relationship, from their feelings and from all that is considered
"feminine") occurs at such an early (between 3 and 5 years) age.
I and all men walk around this planet with covert depression
because of the parts of us that got lost.

In my work with couples, I emphasize the skills of healthy
relating with the insights presented in this book as background. I now have a deeper understanding of where each party is coming from and I can better see their gifts, honor their wounds and hold a vision of what may be possible for them. In this way, I seek to empower the couple - by being the orchestrator who holds the sacred space for a more fulfilling relationship.

One of Real's most powerful contributions is his notion of the
five key Relational Skills. As I have seen in my practice, these
skills can be taught to and internalized by both parties in a
relationship." I've seen evidenced, internalized by both parties.
When a couple has the core skills and an intention to replace the
"control, revenge, resignation syndrome" with "harmony,
disharmony, repair", the future is much, much brighter.

This is work we all need to do.

I have read everything out there to try and salvage an eighteen year relationship. I saw myself and my husband on every page of this book. It was amazing. For the first time I understood what was going on and why it has been so hard to talk to each other. I gave this book to my husband and insisted that we read it together and we actually talked about it.
This is the smartest book on couples I have ever read. It explains why so many men and women have so much trouble. It's full of ideas about how to make it better. The stories made me laugh and sometimes even cry, like a good novel. I loved every minute of it. And it's just brimming over with casual comments that are so profound. Like this - "The great paradox of intimacy is that in order to sustain closeness we have to be capable of bearing solitude inside the relationship." Or what Terry calls, "normal marital hatred." There are a million of these. I honestly can say I'd like to see everyone who wants their relationship to work to read this. It should be passed out along with marriage licenses. It is far and away the best thing I have ever found. Thank you!

because, Im telling you... you will be sorry like I am now, going through the book the second time with a yellow highlighter (use the color of your choice,blue, pink whatever) On the other hand if you read Real's other book "I Dont want to Talk about It" first (but I'm not talking about it now) and then read this book you will receive an education of a lifetime, especially if your married and would like to stay that way. The part about greiving for what you dont have in your marriage was especially critical to me, but there is SO much! I'm astounded that there are so few reviews here... I can really relate to the parts about Reals own marriage too. Excellent..10 stars!

This book is not to be missed. It is a breakthrough, not the usual pablum, self-help, instant fix.
I thought loneliness between partners was inevitable after a few years of marriage and I should just get over the loss.

I have changed my mind after reading this book. Being in relationship, deeply connecting through the years is absolutely possible. I believe in my bones that this book offers deep and true insights. It is groundbreaking. It describes the subtle detail of what men do, don't do and need to do, what women do, don't do and need to do, what is poison, and what works. It is clear and straight; it pulls no punches. The case studies are so real - often heartbreaking. Without a doubt Terry Real has been to hell and back with his clients. He knows how to break through our cultural myths, common assumptions, and deep fears. Don't miss this book if you are in a relationship or coach people in relationships and if you want to understand and heal the male/female chasm. This book teaches the finest points about love.

I picked up this book right after starting therapy for depression which has plagued me most of my life. I wanted help in finding a way to reconnect to my husband so we could both benefit as much as possible from therapy.

First of all, I was surprised to find this 'self-help book' to be a real page turner. This book isn't only insightful, it's masterfully written with wonderful imagery that pulls you into the stories of Terry's clients and his own life. The book doesn't just tell you how to fix your problems, it provides characters and situations you can relate to.

This book provided so much more than I'd expected. Though it didn't give simple solutions to my particular relationship problems, it opened my mind to HOW relationships and our society work. I don't think you should pick up this book expecting an easy answer to getting through to your man. It simply gives you the tools to look at your relationship differently, and understand how our culture has crippled men's ability to relate to others emotionally.

Unlike some of the reviews I've read, I didn't find this book to be 'man bashing' at all. I wonder if those who thought of it that way even finished the book. Terry simply addresses the fact that men have learned to shut off their emotions as a defence against our culture's expectations while women are expected to learn to deal with emotional situations such as relationships. After reading this book, I immediately felt more forgiving and understanding of the men in my life and the harsh realities they're faced with. I no longer felt the need to blame my husband for the difficulty he often has relating to me emotionally, and that to 'get through' to him, I'm the one who has to change my approach rather than expecting HIM to change.

After finishing this book, I immediately picked up Terry's first book, "I Don't Want to Talk About It" which is just as good, if not better. Even if it's focused on depression in men, I found it to be a very helpful tool in dealing with my emotional problems as well. I highly recommend both.

Where was this book when I was in marriage counseling in the 70's? My husband and I were drinking and never, not once, did our therapist ask us if we had any addictions. Take away the alcohol and you're left with the depressed couple who have no clue how to talk to each other, let alone repair any day-to-day damage they have inflicted on their relationship. I found myself highlighting page after page saying to myself "Oh my God, this is me and my partner. Now I get it." This book is to be read slowly and carefully so you can understand, for the first time in your life, what is going on. Don't get married without it.

Like many people, i got to this book trying to solve a relational crisis, but this book gave me a lot more then just relationship tips and ways to solve interaction problem. I bought it based on people response and mostly, cause the title reflected exactly the way i was feeling within my relationship. And what this gave me was answers to many of the question me and my partner were living though, like why women and men are so different, how does our relationship with our parents effect the relationship and how does it all fit within a cultural context.

What i liked mostly about this book is that it doesn't separate psychology from other fields in life in personal understanding - such as sociology, philosophy and even movies and myths. It's very deep and bring many examples that are easy to identify with. It doesn't just scratch the surface of understanding, it goes real deep into the history of a person and the social expectation they face in order to understand how our minds, and more then that - how does our emotion work and react.

Most of all, for me, the main importance of this book was learning the see the gap that's happened within my relationship as something that can be bridges, and knowing that in order to do that, both me and my partner would have to change.

This is not a self help book, most of all it gives you a deep understanding on where your problems stem from, not an east 12 (or 11 or 8) steps program of how to solve them. Personally, this book helped me to seek couple therapy and give an 8 year relationship another very honest shot.

I read this book to get continuing eductaion credits for my social work license. It's completely changed how I look at the therapy process. It's also completely changed how I look at my marriage. It provides an effective, yet not impossibly complicated, roadmap through the dilemmas and no-win situations in which couples find themselves. It gave me insights into what I was doing wrong, and ideas of how I could quickly change.

Is this a male bashing book? I thought so at first. As much as I liked the book, I resented being stereotyped as a male with a certain commitment to accomplishment at the expense of vulnerability and feelings. I'm actually just the opposite, a product of 1960's encounter groups. Toward the end of the book, though, Real does acknowledge that every now and then there is a male who has the opposite problem. He's in touch with feelings, the nurturing side of life, but perhaps viewed as a loser in the world of accomplishments. And that fits me dead on!

The book's style isn't typical for a book about therapy. There's a great deal of self-revelation on Real's part, and also many passages that would pass as high-caliber fiction were they not obviously based on fact. Real is a skillful writer. And that makes him easier to read.

Before you leave an unhappy marriage, you MUST read this book. It helped me understand so many more things about the terrible deadlocks people get into in relationships. I've never read anything like it. With the new way the author helps you "see" the relationship interactions, if you stay you won't be resentful, and if you go, at least you'll know why instead of being lost in a swirl of hurt and anger. Either way, you may feel like you truly understand even your multi-decade marriage for the very first time.

I would recommend this book to everyone, especially anyone who grew up in the 50's and 60's where children were "seen and not heard", where men were raised to be straight-backed leaders of the family and women were raised to achieve less. Terrence Real's writing is creative, intelligent and reveals his deep concern for his clients. This book addresses so many of the issues my family and friends struggle with that I bought additional copies as gifts for them.